"One year after China’s 'Regulations on Religious Affairs' came into force, Chinese citizens’ ability to exercise their right to freedom of religion remains as subject to arbitrary restrictions as ever," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

When the regulations came into effect in March 2005, the government called them a significant step forward in protecting religious freedom in China.

But the rights group said that Buddhist, Muslim and Christian believers continued to face strict restrictions on how they choose to practice their faith.

"The regulations have not created the space for the free exercise of religion that was promised," said Brad Adams, the rights group's Asian director.

"Instead, Chinese citizens who engage in the most basic religious activities can still find themselves arrested, in jail, or under threat."

Crackdowns on unregistered Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic, remained widespread, while followers of quasi-religious groups such as the outlawed Falungong continued to be arrested and jailed, the group said.

Human Rights Watch especially criticized the control of religious affairs in China's restive minority regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, where repression appeared to intensify in 2005 despite the new regulations.

In Xinjiang, China's western-most region populated by Uighur Muslims, strict controls ban certain Islamic texts, while religious education for minors is severely restricted and subject to fines to both teachers and parents, the group said.

In Tibet, the state last year instituted an 'education' campaign calling on monks and nuns to accept the 15-year-old Panchen Lama, selected by China's communist rulers, as Tibetan Buddhism's highest spiritual leader, the group said.

Buddhist monks and nuns were also compelled to study the government's version of history, most notably that Tibet has always been a part of China, it said.

"Those who refused to accept that Tibet had always been a part of China or refused to denounce the Dalai Lama and accept the legitimacy of the Chinese-chosen Panchen Lama faced expulsion from their monasteries," the group said.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 and has since lived in exile in northern India, has for centuries been viewed as Tibet Buddhism's highest spiritual authority.

Source: World Tibet Network News